Syrian rebels have used a rocket chemical warhead in Aleppo, killing 25 people and injuring 86, says Syria's Information Minister. The attack escalates the Syrian conflict and brings the violence to a new level, believe Russian diplomats.

The Syrian government's SANA news agency reported that
terrorists fired a rocket containing chemical substances in the
Khan al-Assal area of rural Aleppo and confirmed that at least 25
people, most of them civilians, were killed.

The World Health
Organization has pledged on Tuesday to send medical aid and
supplies to Aleppo the following day, but said it could not
ascertain the use of chemical weapons. The organization’s spokesman
told Reuters that on Wednesday the “WHO [would] send medical
supplies (for trauma cases) to Aleppo from its pre-positioned
stocks in Tartous.”

A photographer working for Reuters in Aleppo reported that the
witnesses of the attack complained of a strong smell of chlorine
near the epicenter of the attack. Reportedly, people had breathing
problems and some of them died of suffocation.

"They said that people were suffocating in the streets and
the air smelt strongly of chlorine,” the photographer said,
stressing that most of the victims he saw while visiting the
University of Aleppo hospital and the al-Rajaa hospital were women
and children.

"People were dying in the streets and in their houses,"
he said by phone.

The UN Secretary-General and the director general of the
independent Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW) have both expressed deep concern at the prospect of chemical
warfare in the country. Later, Ban Ki-moon’s office has issued a
statement saying that

“the Secretary-General remains convinced that the use of
chemical weapons by any party under any circumstances would
constitute an outrageous crime”. A statement published on the
Russian Foreign Ministry website says that “According to
information coming from Damascus, the armed opposition used
chemical weapons early in the morning on March 19 in the province
of Aleppo” .

“This is an extremely alarming and dangerous development of
events in the Syrian crisis,” believe Russian diplomats.

The Foreign Ministry stressed it is “seriously concerned”
about the fact that WMD has fallen into the hands of the armed
militia.

“This aggravates the situation in Syria and brings unfolding
confrontation in this country to a new level,” the ministry
states.

The Obama administration announced it is looking carefully at
the chemical warfare allegation coming from Syria, but instantly
called into question the possible use of such weapons by opposition
groups.

"We are looking carefully at the information as it comes
in," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says
the watchdog so far does not have independent confirmation of
chemical weapons use in Syria.

“I don't think we know more than you do at the moment,"
maintained at a seminar in Vienna the head of the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Ahmet Uzumcu.

"Of course we have seen those reports and we are closely
monitoring the situation," he said.

Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi stated Turkey and
Qatar bore "legal, moral and political responsibility" for
the "dangerous escalation" in violence because of their
support of rebel groups fighting to oust President Bashar Assad. He
decried the incident as the interim government’s “first
act.”

The Turkish government has immediately rejected Syria’s
accusations of taking part in the alleged chemical attack in
Syria’s northern province of Aleppo.

"This is a baseless accusation. The Syrian government has
accused Turkey in the past as well," an unnamed Turkish
official told Reuters.

Opposition group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
reported 26 people killed following the attack, saying that 16 died
on the scene, while the other 10 died in hospital. A spokesperson
for the organization said it was unclear how many civilians
perished in the attack.

The British envoy to the UN told reporters on his way to the
Security Council that the reports on chemical weapon attack in
Syria “haven't yet been fully verified."

“But clearly if chemical weapons were used then that would be
abhorrent and it would require a serious response from the
international community," Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told
reporters.

Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi said on Tuesday the
country's armed forces would never use internationally banned
chemical weapons.

“The Syrian army leadership has stressed this before and we
say it again, if we had chemical weapons we would never use them
due to moral, humanitarian and political reasons," Zoabi said
at a media conference.

"Our armed forces absolutely could not use, not now, nor at
any time, nor in the past, any weapon banned by international
law,” he stressed.

Fears that Syria’s chemical weapons could fall into militant
hands have been a source of constant concern for the international
community over the past few months. The US and the UN have
repeatedly warned President Bashar Assad’s government against
deploying its own chemical arms stockpile.

Damascus maintains that it would never use such weapons against
its own people, but would consider their deployment if threatened
by outside forces.

Reports that Syrian rebels had seized control of a number of
chemical weapons depots in the Aleppo province emerged on
Sunday.

"Opposition fighters gained control over weapons and
ammunition stores in the village of Khan Toman in southern Aleppo
province on Saturday after fierce fighting that went on for more
than three days," an anonymous military source told AFP.
Reports of the weapons seizure came after days of brutal clashes
between opposition and government forces.

The source said the rebels only managed to steal a few crates
containing ammunition, as a large part of the weapons stockpile had
been transferred out of the facility. Activists disputed this,
maintaining that rebels had taken control of “huge
reserves.” A video posted online showed fighters looking over
crates of weapons and ammunition, and claimed the attack was
mounted by opposition group the Martyrs of Syria.

UK-based opposition group the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights confirmed the attack, but did not mention chemical weapons
among the arms that were reportedly seized by the rebels.